ACL tear put a sour ending to a sweet season for Oilers' workhorse Andrej Sekera

2016-17 Edmonton Oilers in review: Andrej Sekera

When he took over the GM’s job in Edmonton two years ago, Peter Chiarelli identified four key priorities: defence, goaltending, “heaviness”, and coaching. He then proceeded to make a number of moves, many of them controversial ones, toward those ends — particularly in the defensive end of the rink. (Or as I think of it, Chiarelli’s “2-4-6-8! Who Do We Appreciate?” defence corps.)

Let’s start with #2, likely the least-controversial, most-appreciated blueline acquisition of the Chiarelli era. Andrej Sekera cost nothing but money, albeit a lot of it, to bring to Edmonton. He was signed that Canada Day of 2015 to the richest contract of the summer. He was a big piece of the effort to fix the defence, even as he didn’t particularly check that other box for heaviness. Unless you count heavy minutes, that is, accumulated in 20+ minute chunks for 81 and 80 games respectively in his first two seasons

In a very real way Sekera was added to fill the gaping hole left by the trade of Jeff Petry to Montreal at the previous trade deadline, a couple of months before Chiarelli took the reins. A pending UFA in Edmonton, Petry signed an extension with the Habs that June to an identical contract as that later signed by Sekera: 6 years at $5.5 million each year with similar No Move Clause protection for both. One could make the case that Sekera took the “Petry money” left unspent by the Oilers when they chose to “challenge” the player with a one-year contract rather than sign him long term. One thing is for sure, Sekera took Petry’s old #2 and filled the need for an experienced multi-purpose rearguard somewhere in the top two pairings.

Tow years later Petry has excelled in Montreal, while Sekera has performed well in Edmonton, with both rearguards upping their game in the most recent campaign. Which player you prefer is up to the reader, but with the important distinction that at this point in time one of them is broken. That would be Sekera, who saw a long and successful season come to a painful conclusion when he tore knee ligaments in a second round playoff game. The Oilers became a weaker team the moment Sekera limped down the tunnel, missing the veteran badly as that game went into double overtime and again when they fell 2-1 in Game Seven a few nights later. The news went from bad to worse when Chiarelli revealed the extent of the injury and its expected recovery time — a ghastly 6 to 9 months. That equates to anywhere between the first 20-60 games of the 2017-18 season. Split the difference and he’ll be out until New Year and miss the first half of the season. Argh.

Suffice to say he’ll be missed. Sekera had a splendid second season in Edmonton, posting career second-bests in goals, assists and points with 8-27-35 to finish second among Edmonton d-men in scoring. He was second on the Oilers in average time-on-ice at 21:28, and also ranked second in TOI on both special teams with just over two minutes a night on each. Let’s just say that sweater #2 was well chosen.

Sekera also saw his plus-minus soar from -15 to a career-best +14, the 29-goal swing on his watch representing his share and then some of his team’s 79-goal improvement on the season. Like the club, Sekera’s on-ice goal share improved at both ends of the ice: his Goals For/60 jumped from 1.89 to 2.20, his Goals Against/60 dipped from 2.51 all the way down to 1.70. Combining those outcomes, his GF% soared from 43.0% to 56.5%; rounding slightly, the Oilers scored 4 of every 7 even strength goals with Sekera on the ice compared to 3 in 7 the year previous. His on-ice shot shares also improved, but much more marginally, from 48.9% to 50.8%. Meanwhile, the needle barely wavered in his shots at goal shares, which stood at 48.8% a year ago and crawled up to 49.1% in 2016-17.

Interesting to compare his performance with his primary partners over his two Edmonton seasons. In both campaigns Sekera played 1300 minutes and change at even strength. Each year his primary partner was a veteran: Mark Fayne in 2015-16, then Kris Russell in 2016-17; while his second most common partner was a rookie pro: Darnell Nurse last season, Matt Benning this. Stats adapted from hockeyanalysis.com:

While his ice time percentages by partner were roughly parallel, Sekera’s offensive production numbers soared in 2016-17, and the team results were better at both ends of the rink. The difference between the two rookies was stark, likely exacerbated by the fact that Sekera was forced to his off-side when he paired up with Nurse in 2015-16. Of particular interest were his splits with Russell: weak Corsi but very strong goal share. We’ll examine this seeming anomaly in more detail in the Kris Russell post. For the current purpose we will simply point out the somewhat odd coupling of the two most experienced defenders on the team, both UFA signings, both good skaters, both lefties, both 6 feet or less and under 200 pounds, by far the least physical pairing but 1-2 in blocked shots. By eye it didn’t always work, but they sure didn’t give up very many goals against.

The above are 5v5 numbers, and don’t take into account a strong season on the penalty kill, where Sekera had the best rating among the four main PK defenders in both shots against and goals against.

The versatile Slovak has also proven to be something of an overtime witch during his time in Edmonton. In 35 minutes of 3v3 play over the past two seasons combined, the Oilers have held a striking 30-9 (!) edge in shots on goal on his watch, while Sekera himself has contributed 6 points (=standings points) in the wide open spaces of modern OT. That’s a nice arrow for Todd McLellan’s quiver in free-lunch time.

And it’s one that will be missed in the fall. All the words of praise about Sekera’s 2016-17 echo in the empty halls of the season to come. Until such time as he’s able to return, he’s going to be a hard man to replace.

Remember this? Way back at the other end of a long season, Sekera faced a familiar-looking rival in the World Cup of Hockey.Ryan Remiorz /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

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